Naruto: The Chosen Undead-Chapter 146 - no.145 Dark Souls

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Chapter 145 The Madness of Magic

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Naruto felt a little lightheaded at Rickert's firm but amused, No. "You're funny. C'mon, dude, teach me magic. You're from Vinheim, right?"

Rickert chuckled dryly, setting aside the hammer he'd been turning over in his hands. "Hrm? I think you're mistaking Vinheim for a single school of thought. We have smiths, battlemages, archivists, and more than a few eccentric lunatics. I was trained to handle magic, yes but not to wield it the way sorcerers do."

Naruto blinked. "Wait... so you're not a sorcerer?"

Rickert raised an eyebrow. "I'm a blacksmith, boy. One of the best Vinheim had, back before I threw myself in here. I didn't spend my days poring over dusty scrolls, I spent them hammering, tempering, binding sorcery into steel. If you were hoping for a lecture on soul geometry or catalyst matrices, you're out of luck."

Naruto frowned, scratching his head. "Then why did Andre send me here? He said you'd help."

"Hah. That sounds like Andre." Rickert reached beside him and pulled out a weathered scroll bound in blue silk. "He must think you've got potential. Or, more likely, he knows how we work in Vinheim."

"What's that mean?"

Rickert held the scroll out. "We don't theorize. We don't study. We fiddle. We forge. And eventually if you're stubborn enough, it works. Andre sending you to me means he thinks you'll figure it out on your own."

Naruto stared at the scroll like it had personally betrayed him. "You mean he sent me all the way to a flooded cursed city... for a crash course in trial and error?"

"Never said the path of sorcery was elegant."

Naruto snatched the scroll. "You could've just told me this from the start, y'know."

"And spoil the moment? Where's the fun in that?" Rickert's smirk widened just enough to be punchable. "Can you really blame me? Most of my days down here are just me, the fog, and a whole lot of drowned stone."

Naruto let out a dramatic groan, flopping onto the stone stair. "If I were you, I'd at least have pretended to be a wise old master for a few more minutes."

Rickert chuckled. "You've got a sense of humor. I like that. Alright, let's get to it. Two thousand for Soul Arrow. Four for Heavy Soul Arrow."

Naruto checked his soul count, then tossed the exact amounts into the tray in front of the cage.

[You have obtained]

[Soul Arrow]

[Heavy Soul Arrow]

[Item: Soul Arrow]

[Description: Elementary sorcery. Fire a soul arrow. Soul arrows inflict magic damage, making them effective against iron armor, tough scales, and other physically resilient materials.]

The writing was intricate and complex but not incomprehensible. In fact, the more he looked, the more the pieces began to click into place. His enhanced INT stat made the glyphs clearer, and within moments, he began to recognize the logic in their construction.

"...Wait. This actually makes sense."

Rickert tilted his head. "Hm? Well, that is unusual."

Naruto looked up, grinning. "Maybe I'm just a genius."

"Don't let it go to your head. You'll need a catalyst to cast anything."

Rickert turned and dug through his cluttered pile of gear, eventually pulling free a small, wand-like object wrapped in cracked leather.

"Five hundred," Rickert said simply.

Naruto handed over the cost without a word.

[Item: Sorcerer's Catalyst]

[Description: Sorcery catalyst used by sorcerers of Vinheim Dragon School. Equip catalyst to use sorceries. Attune sorceries from a scroll at a bonfire. Most sorceries have a limited number of uses.]

With everything set, Naruto sat on the damp stone steps beside Rickert's cage, back against the cold wall. He unrolled the spell scroll, his eyes tracing its precise lines and symbols. It should've been complex. It should've looked like nonsense.

But it didn't.

It made sense. Not the way jutsu made sense. This was different. The symbols felt familiar, like echoes from a language his soul already knew but his mouth never learned. Maybe it was the INT boost, or maybe it was Beatrice's words, still fresh in his head.

Think of your soul not as some poetic metaphor, but as a thing truly seated within the cage of your flesh. A slumbering observer in a decaying shell. Magic is not light or fire. It is the soul's scream against the structure of reality. A will so enlightened it reshapes the world around it. The more you grasp how your soul presses against the walls of this fragile world, the more the world begins to bend in response.

Naruto shut the scroll and set it beside him. His fingers curled around the catalyst and he closed his eyes.

He took a breath, then another, and then he reached inward.

Not for chakra. Not for the warmth in his gut or the coils that danced beneath his skin.

He reached deeper.

The catalyst helping him connect with his soul. There was no sensation. Not at first. No heartbeat. No breath.

Just a flicker.

Like touching still water and seeing a ripple without feeling his finger move. Then everything came rushing in.

He wasn't sitting anymore. He was standing. Floating.

He didn't know.

The world had become a thin, delicate lattice of lines and geometry. The stairs beneath him, Rickert's prison, even the foggy ruins around them—it was all laid bare like a blueprint stitched into space. Every movement left traces of motion, threads of color, the shape of memory echoing against the bones of reality. And at the center of it all was him. Or... something like him. An orange silhouette, thin and bright like fire filtered through amber. It stood on a grid of reality, arms loose at its side. The Darksign burned bright on the side of his neck.

His breath caught, if he was breathing.

Then he saw it.

His cursed right arm pulsed like something was breathing inside it—not with lungs, but with hunger.

Vines tangled with ember-bright veins, crept from the core of his soul and wrapped around the limb like ivy choking the life from an ancient ruin. They weren't just on his arm. They were his arm now—woven into the essence of it. Gnarled, claw-like roots burned with ember-glow beneath the surface, pulsing in rhythm with a flame that shouldn't exist. Its chaotic energy warped the soul-flesh around it, turning it brittle and sharp, like obsidian melting and reforming over and over again. And the vines—those creeping parasites—they were feeding on it. Drinking the Chaos in slow, patient sips, like leeches on a god's carcass.

The whole thing moved when Naruto breathed.

A slow curl. A twitch. A silent writhing beneath his skin, like something remembering that it was once alive.

It wasn't painful. Not yet.

But it watched him—somehow. As if it was aware, like the vines had eyes buried deep in the soul, waiting for the perfect moment. Waiting for Naruto to let down his guard. Waiting for him to forget.

Waiting to become him. And yet, even that wasn't the most unsettling thing Naruto had seen. No, that title belonged to New Londo itself.

The water.

It wasn't just water. It was a veil.

A second skin stretched over a wound so deep it hummed. And under that veil... something stirred. A darkness that had mass. Weight. Hunger. It wasn't sleeping. It was drowning. It was holding something back.

A god? A curse? Something worse?

He didn't want to know. And yet... he couldn't look away.

"Boy." Rickert's voice sliced through the silence. "You're viewing the world as a soul."

Naruto blinked, if blinking was still a thing, and turned toward his echo in the lattice.

"Don't try to understand it," Rickert warned. "Soul sorcery comes from within. Focus on yourself. On the catalyst. Not the world. The more you try to comprehend what isn't yours to grasp, the more you invite madness."

His voice dropped.

"Everything in Lordran has a cost. For magic? It's the mind. The soul starts to see, and seeing becomes yearning. And yearning becomes obsession. That's the beginning of Hollowing, boy. The mind tries to understand the gods' language... and breaks."

Naruto swallowed.

"Pull back. Look to your hand."

He did.

The orange silhouette raised its hand—the same hand holding the catalyst. He could see it now, not as wood, but as a conductor. A bridge between the soul and the world. A focusing lens, like a blade carving the shape of will into air.

So he shaped it. The spell. The arrow. He didn't think. He didn't speak. He just focused. And the arrow formed.

It burned a pale blue, vibrating with energy that wasn't hot or cold—just pure. It hovered for a moment, cradled in his soul's breath.

Then he released.

The arrow shot forward, slicing through the fog of the lattice-world, and the moment it did, he felt his knees buckle.

He opened his eyes. Naruto was back.

Back in his body. His heart was hammering in his chest. His throat was dry. His forehead beaded with sweat. His entire body trembled as the last remnants of soul-light faded from his vision, like the ghost of a dream. The Soul Arrow dissolved in the fog ahead.

Rickert leaned on his bars. "How do you feel?"

"Like I want to take a nap," Naruto muttered, sitting down again with a thud. "A long nap."

He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small piece of Green Blossom, the familiar peppery smell hitting him like home. Before he could chew on it, a hand extended toward him. Rickert held out a smoking pipe, carved from bone and capped in silver. "Proper sorcerer deserves a proper ritual."

Naruto took it, placed the blossom inside, and with a bit of flint, lit it. The smoke curled green and warm around his face. It tickled his nose, stung his lungs just enough to be pleasant. He leaned back against the stone, puffing once, then again.

"Not bad," he muttered, exhaling through his nose.

Rickert chuckled. "You look the part."

A soft chime echoed in his ear.

[Soul Arrow has been attuned. Force Miracle removed.]

He looked at the message. Relief flooded his chest. So he didn't have to see the soul-world every time he cast. But... Even as that thought comforted him, something in the back of his mind whispered.

You want to see it again.

Because the moment he glimpsed that place, that lattice of reality, that abyss beneath the water... he knew. And that knowing—it hooked into him. Just a sliver. Just enough to make him need more.

He exhaled a final puff of green smoke and closed his eyes.

Not to rest.

But to feel his chakra again. To remind himself he was still Naruto Uzumaki.

Still him.

For now.

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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word Chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 69, since that's where this Chapter lines up with the content there.

To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!